I want to test LMCE as it looks great on paper. However I am a Linux newbie and I want to use my old system. (see title)I am not sure how best to use it.

For a MD, it could be OK with the right graphic card... but for network booting. Actually, i'm not sure about the point of going diskless. Fine for new MBs (provided we never shut the MD down not to loose too much time booting) but bad for old ones or old laptops (I want to use my old one in the kitchen to watch news, listen to radio or read emails). I hope regular HD booting will be available pretty soon. (I have an old 4GB HD to use!)

For the core, I am not sure. the problem, if I understand well, is with video encoding. Is all encoding made on the core? What about if one has a good tuner card with hardwired encoding? This should limit the load on the CPU.

MDs can boot off the HD now, but what makes you think that booting from the network is slower or a problem? Unless someone told you the machine was network booting then I doubt you would be able to even tell - at least in terms of performance.

I believe that MythTV has support for using hardware encoding when recording, someone else may be able to add more.

Your best bet is to just try it all out - and see how it goes. If you are just testing then create a hybrid system and try it out.

Hi,I have a vaguely related question:I have a number of PCs on my boat network (mostly Linux, a couple XP Pro & Pocket PC). I need to run other applications on them such as office tools, engineering apps & navigation software, etc. I would like to be able to launch a MCE client application (similar to Mythfrontend) that can run alongside my other apps. Is this likely to be possible in the near future? It would really be a hassle to have to re-boot into a Kubuntu MCE environment just to access my media - then back to Ubuntu or XP for everything else.

Hi,I have a vaguely related question:I have a number of PCs on my boat network (mostly Linux, a couple XP Pro & Pocket PC). I need to run other applications on them such as office tools, engineering apps & navigation software, etc. I would like to be able to launch a MCE client application (similar to Mythfrontend) that can run alongside my other apps. Is this likely to be possible in the near future? It would really be a hassle to have to re-boot into a Kubuntu MCE environment just to access my media - then back to Ubuntu or XP for everything else.

Thanks in advance for your wisdom!

Thanks Labview_guy. It is indeed one of my other concern with LMCE. Indeed, my day-to-day desktop and laptop are WinXP-based and will stay so for various reasons. I still want to be able to get straightforward access to all my media from my server though. Is there a LMCE front end available for XP? It is not clear to me.

Regarding network booting: my mistake. I though it was the cause of the slow booting. The good news is that since LMCE can boot from the HD, I can use my old MB to build a MD and not worry about not shutting it down every night. Just have to find the right graphic card... and the right case.

Regarding hardware encoding, I will need more information to understand what is possible. Any advice welcome.

I have been using a diskless MD as my day to day computer for a couple months now.Just select kde desktop from menu, You have a full kubuntu desktop complete with web browsing open office and can pretty much install anything that runs on linux.

I have been using a diskless MD as my day to day computer for a couple months now.Just select kde desktop from menu, You have a full kubuntu desktop complete with web browsing open office and can pretty much install anything that runs on linux.

Great... Unfortunately not everything run on Linux. For instance, I'm using google sketchup a lot and it's only window or mac. Too bad:I still need a direct access to my media from a windows PC.

You can access 'LMCE media' from a windows box, but you woun't get the UI (atleast not yet).You could use mediaportal or something like that for that particular box.

Thanks. I understand I can access my media from whatever computer on the netowrk, regardless of the OS. However, I'm interested in keeping the features of LMCE, especially the central media info database. My interest would be more for audio both on the computer or to sync my IPod with my latest podcasts. Any chance such a feature will come?